Flower Face – Angela

And there are times when you find all those words in your head contained in a song’s lyric and you feel every single word… ❤

And though it hurts every time, yet you keep coming back for more of it… 😐

daylight, i dream of you softly
i wrote you a letter
that will never reach you.

In montreal, the days are much colder there
now you grow older there,
without me.

On the lookout, baby won’t you look out?
a car full of raccoons,
i think that i’m crazy.

and downtown, the bar lights illuminate
lost in a cityscape,
where i try to find you

you walk like a miracle, bathing in starlight
your voice burning holes in the frame
i danced in the parking lot, cried in the taxi home
cause i still remembered your name.

and oh, i’m not in love anymore
but i will keep you close to me forever

moonlight, i dream of you endlessly
drowning in reverie,
waiting for morning.

dim light, i’m drunk at the bar again
holding a stranger’s hand,
a crowd with no faces.

and there you are, beautiful just like the first time
you reach out, i’m shaking again
you’re gone in a moment, you leave me alone
but i swear you were real in my hands

and oh, i’m not in love anymore
but i will keep you close to me forever

i know these words might mean nothing now
while i’m stuck in this ghost town
your softness still haunts me.
someday i’ll find my way out of here
if you don’t change your mind, my dear

 

i’ll take you with me…

The Last Goodbye

Hello Friend. Here we are together. You and me, on the last page.

Over the past few years, life seemed to be moving too slow for me and I was always haunted by this feeling of “missing”  things. However, recently there’s been a flutter and now I’m collecting the broken pieces. I don’t know what’s worse- being sad or not having any reason to cheer anymore.

I think once I’m gone, you won’t be coming back here for a while, and you might be alone, which you should never be. Don’t be alone. And please do one more thing for me.

There’s a girl singing songs and dancing by the riverside. She’s going to wait a long while so she’s going to need a lot of courage. Go to her and tell her the story.

Tell her that if she’s patient, the days are coming that she’ll never forget. Tell her that she’ll shine like a sun in the sky. She’ll fall in love with a man who will wait a thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her that she’ll give hope to all with her stories, and save a lot more by giving them courage.

Tell her that some stories are incomplete because they are best left unsaid. It’s often at the end that we begin to notice how beautiful and perfect the plot always was.  And then we appreciate the small moments of joy and even sorrow.

Tell her that sometimes it is the very last sentence of our favorite book which is the most difficult one to read.  But then we always have another great book to take care of us. Eventually, we either discover the love or we return to the book we had left behind. And at moment we know after all is said and done, that which particular book was our favorite story all along.

So this is it then! Together we two conquered much darkness in our story but also ruined many beginnings by- Overthinking, Expecting, Worrying, Fantasizing, Doubting.

Perhaps, Hemingway was right after all-

We are better when we don’t think so deeply…

This was my story and this is where it ends.

 Au revoir!

 

Exploring a different style of story-telling, something that I haven't done before on my blog :)

#reflection_ending

Of Sailors and Mermaids…

Recently I was following a thread on a blog where most of the people were very interested in songs with poetic lyrics. Actually, what makes a song with poetic lyrics so special are not only its lyrics but also the music in the words.
Just try singing “Jingle bells” or “Twinkle Twinkle little stars” in your head. Most of us will hum these songs in the same way as we learned them back in kindergarten.

Often lyrics of some great songs/poems are numbed by instrumental music. Not that I’ve anything against this; I’m just stating an evolutionary fact. The human brain has different centers to process music and lyrics(language). Personally, I admire poems being read than transformed into a song (unplugged version <3)
With the increased development in machine learning, it’s now possible to extract plain lyrics out of a song to some extent. Here’s one such song or perhaps I should call it a poem (as it is actually one), which was created by turning off the background music and it just feels awesome when listened on headphones (that echo! <3)

Now a bit of a context about the song-

I heard it for the first time in the movie Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides. You all remember Jack Sparrow, aye? 😀  Remember the scene when a boat of sailors was left in the sea near an island by Barbosa and then a number of beautiful mermaids emerge from water whispering this song?

There are many folklores about mermaids and I won’t go into that debate. Some portray them as evil creatures while others as benevolent beings. Interestingly, the movie has shown both sides of them. Here are some interesting theories-

• Sailors used to think it was bad luck to have a woman on a ship so if a woman was found onboard they would throw her into the sea and leave her to drown.
  They believed that the women who they threw into the sea became mermaids seeking out sailors so they could pull them into the ocean and drown them.
• Another theory says Women were considered carrying bad luck because they were considered a distraction on working vessels, especially military.
  Ironically most ships in the past were named after a woman or had the statue of a woman or a mermaid as it was believed that it brings good luck.
• There’s another argument which makes more sense- Women weren’t allowed on board because they believed the ship would get jealous and punish the crew (usually by going into a storm).
  Hence the female names and figureheads of the ships, the ships were considered women, or at least to have the spirit of a woman.
• And finally quoting from a source: Merfolk Mythology– Mermaids drown Pirates, and so they are considered pure. As Sirens sing songs they could cast a spell on men, making them tip over the edge of ships and then eat their bodies and souls. Sirens will not just go near land unless it is needed, they also do not typically go out during the day, it’s like going towards their death sentence. Though Sirens can trance a man’s mind, there are objects that can be enchanted and a man can hold that on him to keep him away from being tranced by the Siren’s Song

It’s best to enjoy this beautiful poem without dwelling into the heresies for too long. 🙂

Full lyrics can be found in the video’s description section.

 

PS: If you liked the sound of this, here’s a collection which has more such lyrical songs. Cheers! 🙂

Up for a challenge?

I hope everyone had a wonderful year with the exception of a few ups and downs. (Life sucks! IKR ). So let’s take a moment to appreciate that you are still standing tall. Here’s one motivation quote to pump you up 😀 –

Always remember, it was the earthquakes that made the mountains we see now.

Before you look back at your blog by end of this year to identify achievements and missed opportunities and start drafting the resolution list for next year,  how about ending this year on a high?

I found this short article about different ways to end a story and was relating my past posts with it. It made me realize some monotonicity in my style of writing and how many different ways someone can innovate their stories. That being said, maybe this post is not for someone who’s pretty good with writing in a specific style. But for anyone who is still trying to find a JK Rowling or Khaled Hosseini or a George Orwell in them, this can be a good experiment and more importantly “fun”(if writing is your cup of tea 🙂 ).

Just pick as many as you can from the list below and give it a shot. Don’t forget to add a pingback in the comments section below with a hashtag of your type of story ending. Happy writing! 🙂

How To End Your Story

The Circle Ending- A story that does a full circle and comes back to the beginning

The Moral Ending- An ending where you learn a lesson and see the character develop

The Surprise Ending- A big plot twist last minute

The Reflection Ending- The Character looks back on their past achievements and experiences

The Emotional Ending- Leave your readers feeling sad, bittersweet, or happy

The Cliff Hanger Ending- End on something that will leave your readers at the edge of their seat

The Humor Ending- Finish in a funny or humorous way

The Question Ending- Make the reader wonder what will happen next

The Image Ending- Show, don’t tell

The Dialogue Ending- Finish with a quote from one of your characters

Source: https://writersblockbecomesunblocked.tumblr.com/post/180057186991/how-to-end-your-story

 

3- Why your Poems always have to Rhyme?

Here’s the link to the previous post of this series:  Chapter-2: Why all the fuss?

Epilogue

This is the last post of this series and I won’t be making any concluding remarks of course as this is just a personal perspective.

Many of you may beg difference from me and others will take differing opinions as a matter-of-right but as I said this is “my” opinion and I needn’t be correct, being politically correct is a far cry.

On the choice of one’s use of vocabulary for a piece of writing, I agree each word has a very specific meaning and you cannot just replace a word with some other one without losing the exact sense. But words are only to beautify this body, to make it more presentable, they cannot be the soul, they were never meant to be.

There are some other hidden dangers also, lurking under the bed-sheets, notably plagiarism, remixing and pseudo-sophistication. But do you know, we all kind-of love these things?

On charges of plagiarism or remixing, people say every story has some echoes of older ones. You cannot just write a story on an unwritten idea. So basically, all modern works are work of plagiarism or even worse remixing. But my friend there is a difference between inspiration and imitation. Choose responsibly.

Now, over the proposition that ‘All stories have already been written. We are just remixing
them’. Being a writer myself I would say this somewhat hurts my sentiments and on a personal note, I beg to differ. But again, this is an opinion and everyone has the right to own one and strongly stand by it. As for today, I can let it quietly slide under my bed and can still sleep well. But for how long I can sleep like that is a different story. Who knows how soon I’ll have my next emotional meltdown and end up writing a similar series of posts about it 😀

Lastly, if any of my words offended/revolutionalized the writer/poet in you, and you end up writing your side of the story, or a perspective; please drop me a link in the comment section below, if you can. Maybe I’ll agree with you, or maybe not, but what’s important is seeing both sides- and that’s what it takes to build a bridge, isn’t it? 🙂

 

2- Why your Poems always have to Rhyme?

Here’s the link to the previous post of this series:  Chapter-1: Preface

Why all the fuss?

So what are these blog posts about anyway? What’s the whole point? Well, it’s still about Poems.  As much as you love them, they can also become your biggest headaches.

People tend to express their most intricate feelings into verses. The problem arises when you come across such verses wrapped in the name of sentiments but found them somewhat different as if alien-born. Their distinguishing/disgusting characteristic is that they rhyme, rhyme and endlessly rhyme. And most deadly of all are the end rhymes i.e. the rhyming words at the end of the lines. They rhyme without any rhyme or reason. Oh! rhyme again. For such literati Illuminati the dictum is, “If it doesn’t rhyme, it ain’t a poem.”

Rhyming is a technique of versification. There are many tools of rhyme: perfect rhymes,
masculine rhymes, feminine rhymes, triple rhymes, internal rhymes, consonance, assonance, iambic pentameter, iambic tetrameter, and even octosyllabic couplets. But looking at the poisonous potion I even don’t need to look for the tools they used for brewing it. The work of such great masters is quite difficult for pseudo-intelligentsia like me to understand. It’s a safe assumption to make for our System Model that they have never heard of a blank verse or of a free verse. They should better read John Milton. For them, I’m a Dutchman. And if they call their work a poem I’m even ready to label myself ‘double French’.

To be fair, not only verse but prose could also prove to be venomous. Suppose you come across a story. This story is not actually a story but a compendium of most superfluous words you would ever see, the words not reflecting the honesty of the writer but the shallowness of his/her thoughts (not to be sexist, after all the water could be shallow anywhere). They smack a deliberate attempt at the writer’s behalf to sound sophisticated. For lesser mortals like me, it is just another excuse for not to say goodbye to our lexicons.

Here! I did it! I let it all out! All those emotions buried under the hood of social obligations of being nicer to people and being appreciative to their attempts. And I’m glad that they will never know about this. I never expect someone to take my (or anyone’s) opinion as a gospel and change their lives. We ALL are severely flawed. It’s a matter of self-introspection and self-realization only.

On a second thought, Ignorance is such bliss! 😉

 

Coming up in the next post tomorrow : Chapter-3: Epilogue

1- Why your Poems always have to Rhyme?

Preface

I’m not an active blogger nor am I an active reader who religiously follows writings of other bloggers. I have a full-time job and it is something I still enjoy doing (at least so far.. :P). So, the occasional mood-swings are the real reason I keep coming here, to this secret place, away from my social life where no one can deliver judgments on my thoughts based on some preconceived bias in their heads, by assuming they “know” me.

Although, whenever I’m in my “reading zone”, I read a lot. I want to know everything about that topic, all of it, right till the end. Because once I’m done I have so many thoughts. Ideas, questions, assumptions, pre-assumptions, conclusions, counter-conclusions, and all those mixed emotions, moments of glory and that of defeat, tears, hopes, longings; each of them is golden. I suppose that’s plenty to satiate my broken soul. 🙂

I’m a big fan of poems. The idea of encompassing fathomless meaning in such a frugal way has always intrigued me and I always have a great respect for anyone who give their best and honest effort to such a noble cause. So I prefer reading poems as a starter snack before diving deeper into the main-course buffet. 😉

Unfortunately today it was different, things didn’t turn out as I expected them to be, and I was left mid-way with an acrimonious feeling which made me write this post. During this course I also dug into my emails to find an article, expressing similar anguish, which was written by one of my seniors from my college days. We were in a similar situation together but his pain was deeper and he penned down a scathing article which created few ripples in my college literary board. I can’t afford to lose that genius piece of writing into some zeroes and ones somewhere on my hard disk again. So I’m going to generously use passages from that article, as quoted, with no intention of owning any of it, but only to demonstrate that our plight is common.

 

Here’s the link to the next post of this series: Chapter-2: Why all the fuss?

The purest love

A must read!

The Wheel Deal

If you ask just about any dog lover what it is that they love so much about dogs, they’re practically obligated to mention the phrase “unconditional love”. Unlike most things – although I might be biased – I am inclined to classify this as fact, not opinion. Even puppies who have been raised in abusive homes are known to try to protect the very humans who hurt them.

Naturally, this is important to anyone. It is human nature to want to be accepted and loved. As a person with a disability I will take that one step (tire rotation?) further. No matter how great my support system is – more on that later – there will always be parts of my disability that are inconvenient to those around me. Do you know who has never cared even one bit about my disability? My dog. Actually, any of my dogs. I’m…

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World of Pixar

It’s the weekend and more importantly, it’s the holy Saturday 🙂 The Pre-Rest day 😀

I didn’t want to do anything and just be a sloth all day in my bed. A biryani, later in the afternoon, would be the perfect icing on the cake (just a drooling thought 😉 ).

So what do I do now? Read something? Well, as part of my job, I do a lot of reading all week. And those posts are not always about something of interest but they are more like filtering sand to gather gold. Therefore I excused that thought there itself.

Why not watch something awesome? 🙂 A baffling mystery thriller, thoughtful drama, or a romantic comedy or a fan-fiction, animation? Too many choices…..arrrrghhh…

But then came my moment of enlightenment and I decided to start off my day with a touching story which has a flavor of everything- love, fear, innocence, sadness and a good dose of humor. That’s when I decided to watch this Pixar film Up (2009)  This is one of my all-time favorites and I think this was the 5th time I was watching it again 😛

After the movie, I was feeling pretty good as always, cherishing all those moments that were still playing in my head. And that’s when I recalled something that I had read a few years back but it was stuck in my head since then. And that’s how I landed up here writing this post. 🙂

One thing I like about Pixar films is how the happy ending isn’t always what you think it’ll be. Did anyone of you ever felt the same?

In Toy Story, the toys don’t go with Andy to college, Gusteau’s restaurant gets closed down(Ratatouille), Mike and Sulley get kicked out of university(Monsters University), and in Up, Carl never gets Ellie to Paradise Falls.

But ultimately they do find out that what they wanted isn’t necessarily what they needed. And this is the best part. I really like the fact that from these films kids get to learn that life doesn’t always turn out the way they dreamed and which is perfectly okay.

I think in today’s time when there’s such a cut-throat competition in every aspect of life and a tremendous pressure to perform, the message from these Pixar movies is no less than a gospel.

Not every story has a happy ending. Some are just left incomplete… few cherish them as Memories… for some they are Lessons. As for the happy endings… they aren’t really endings but just a beginning of something new. And that’s how one should see LIFE… a cycle of eventualities!

Hopeless Romantic

 

It’s addictive to look at you,

watching every move you make.

 

Those red lips,

that suck up all the attention in a room.

 

Those glaring eyes,

that shimmer like bright stars.

Yet soft. Yet comforting.

 

That soft skin,

dusted with night stars.

Yet carrying glow of a sun.

 

That interchangeable face.

Both happy and sad.

Both hot and cold.

 

You are everything this world is made up of.

From its abyss of darkness,

To its purest of lights.

 

Your fingers are like a poem,

As I tremble for their touch.

 

I want to kiss you,

waste my time on you,

keep your secrets,

take care of your moments,

hug you,

adore you.

 

Your insanity is now my science.

 

 

@Negatorry: Challenge completed. Can you sense the joy? 😛 

Eagerly waiting for the next one 🙂 Many thanks for giving me a motive 😀